2020

Life milestone on July 4, 2020

Graduated from University of Twente

Earned a BSc degree in Creative Technology, an interdisciplinary engineering and design program from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, with specialization in smart technology and extra credits (Honors program in Science). My bachelor thesis on Email-based Intelligent Virtual Assistants under Dr. J. Zwiers was graded 9/10 and nominated for the Bachelor Award.

Life milestone on July 1, 2020

Co-founded Pabio

Pabio offers rent-to-own furniture with personalized interior design. Carlo Badini and I co-founded Pabio after getting to know each other over a period of a few months remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wrote a blog post on June 28, 2020

Who is the author of an AI-generated news article?

If you read major American newspapers such as Forbes or the Los Angeles Times, chances are you’ve already read a story entirely written by an AI-powered software system. This process is known as automated journalism, and highlights an important question about authorship: Who is the author of an article written by a virtual agent?. A 2005 study found that research participants attribute story credit to the programmers who developed the AI or the news organization publishing the story.

Wrote a blog post on June 28, 2020

Microsoft is the most important company in the open-source ecosystem

This was a sidenote for another note I’ve been thinking about, but I think it deserves its own post. Today (mid 2020), Microsoft is the world’s most important, influential, and exciting company in the open-source ecosystem. Once considered evil[^1], Microsoft under Nadella has not only embraced open-source, but pushed it more forward than any other Big Tech company[^2]. If I had to choose between working at any of the FAANG/Big Four/etc., it has to be Microsoft.

Redesigned website on February 15, 2020

Amsterdam

Wrote a blog post on January 3, 2020

Introducing Uppload v2

In April 2018, I made the first commit to Uppload (56bd930) and pitched it as an idea to Michael, the founder of El Niño, to fund the development of an open-source JavaScript file uploader, something that the web desperately needed. Later that summer, we launched Uppload and started using it in our projects.

Published a project on January 1, 2020

Uppload

Open source JavaScript file uploading widget with 30+ plugins to select and edit photos

New yearly theme on January 1, 2020

Year of Long Term

  • Theme for 2020

I didn't write a blog post about my theme in 2020, but here's an excerpt from my blog post 2022 will be the Year of Teamwork which summarizes my thinking behind this theme: 2020 was my Year of Long Term. I had just come back after living for a short while in the San Francisco Bay Area (after an exchange semester at Santa Clara University) and I knew that I'd be graduating from the University of Twente in 2020, so I had to decide where to fo